Sebastian Vettel came within three-thousandths of a second of a perfect race result at Japan.

It was the 25th Japanese Grand Prix that counted for the world championship and – happily – the 21st at Suzuka. More facts and stats below.

Vettel has now won four Grands Prix, which is the same number won by Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren and Eddie Irvine.

Vettel has won all four of his victories from pole position. This was his fifth start from pole, matching Giuseppe Farina, Chris Amon, Clay Regazzoni, Patrick Tambay and Keke Rosberg’s tally.

The Red Bull driver dominated the Grand Prix, leading every lap of a race for the first time in his career. It means his team have now led a total of 1,198km, moving them past the 1,000km mark.

He came very close to achieving the perfect Grand Prix result of a win from pole, leading every lap and setting fastest lap. But team mate Mark Webber beat his time by 0.003s with mere minutes of the race left to run. (Read more: Japanese Grand Prix fastest laps analysis)

That was Webber’s second fastest lap, giving him as many in his career as Vettel plus 13 other drivers.

McLaren team mates Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen each started their 50th Grands Prix, the pair having made their F1 debuts at Melbourne in 2007. Hamilton has finished more than half of them – 26 – on the podium, and has scored exactly 250 points – an average of five points per race, equal to a fourth place finish.

Kovalainen, meanwhile, saw his six-race streak of points finishes come to an end.

With two races to go every team has scored at least five points. The last time every team’s minimum score was higher was in 2005, when last-placed Minardi had seven points, all scored in the farcical United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis.

The Japanese Grand Prix returned to Suzuka for the 21st F1 championship race at the track. It is now F1’s 12th most-visited track, moving ahead of Watkins Glen. Adding the four Grands Prix at Fuji, this was F1’s 25th championship event in Japan.

As ever, if you’ve spotted a cool fact or stat from yesterday’s race, please post it in the comments.

* Trulli’s 2nd place was first podium for Japanese manufacturer in Japanese GP. However, Honda engines have got seven podiums between 1987 and 2004, including two wins: 1988 and 1991.

* Last-placed finisher getting fastest lap must be quite rare event. Don’t have time to check those events now.

* This was 57th GP in Asia (Japan 27, Malaysia 11, China 6, Bahrain 6, Turkey 5, Singapore 2), surpassing a total of South America (Brazil 36, Argentina 20). South America will equalize next race but Asia will go ahead again in Abu Dhabi, likely for forever.

* The race had shortest “sprint race” to the chequered flag following safety car with four laps and about 23,2 kilometres. Montreal 2006 had six or seven, although on a shorter track. Singapore 2008 had also quite a short one (I think it was eight)

Malaysia 2006 had a lot of grid changes due to engine penalties. I was there and we didn’t know the grid until Sunday morning. He’s Wiki’s entry on the subject:

Qualifying on Saturday saw the new rules put to the test, as David Coulthard, Felipe Massa, Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher were all forced to swap engines from the Bahrain GP and therefore lost 10 places on the starting grid after qualifications (Massa actually changed his engine twice, causing him to lose 20 places).

Vettel became the most uncool driver by doing a chest bump with a team member after the podium and by persisting to use his index finger and little finger in a ‘rock on’ type way… no doubting his nationality.

Quite the contrary. Vettel has a very British sense of humour. I’m sure I heard one of his parents was English and he’s really into British humour.
Does that make you uncool. Anyway, hardly a factual stat about the GP.

To add to that, i dont think the race was as boring as Singapore, at least we saw couple of overtake maneuvers (Sutil Kovi)or attempts. Also a challenge between Hamilton and Trulli , and a safety car which didnt work in favor of anyone (maybe Rosberg) .. and made it little more exciting…

I believe this is the second time this year that the same team has had one driver win and the other come last out of those who finish (Ferrari had this result with Kimi and Badoer at Spa). When was the last time that happened twice in one season, particularly with two separate teams?

Another unusual situation about this race: Mark Webber participated in practice and the race but completely missed qualifying, whereas Timo Glock took part in Saturday practice and qualifying but missed Friday practice and the race itself.

And now we head to Brazil, with a Brazilian and a Brit battling for the championship (and the possibility of a German driver making a big difference)….that sounds familiar, somehow.

To expand one Hamilton’s stat, apart from George Amick who scored 6 points in the Indy 500 and never raced again in an event that counted towards the F1 WDC, Hamilton’s average is only beaten by Schumacher’s and Fangio’s.

With his fourth victory, Vettel has taken the sole third place in the “Best German Driver” ranking (in regards of victories), which he shared with Heinz-Harald Frentzen before. He still needs to get past both Schumachers, Ralf with 6 wins and obviously Michael with 91.